For many years, Dan Meyer has been challenging Sal Khan’s attempts to improve math education through technological innovation. In the latest episode of this ongoing saga, Dan concedes that bots may be helpful with very small items, but he correctly points out that they cannot support students’ very big questions. I encourage you to read his post.
You’ll find some confirmation of Dan’s ideas in this video featuring Khan and his son’s interaction with GPT-4o. What you’ll see is a bot “patiently” helping a kid with basic vocabulary and a definition, and making sure he applies a formula correctly. As far as I’m concerned, this is aiming pretty low. There’s a lot more to learning math!
What I’d like to do in this post is complement Dan’s article by looking in between the very small (e.g. the correct application of the distributive property) and the very big (e.g. the student’s relationship to mathematics). Here are some things teachers do every day that are not likely to be done well or at all by a bot.
When helping an individual student:
- Seeing in their face and demeanor whether a hint is in order (can a few seconds of silence suffice for the student to get going? is it better to suggest they take a little more time before asking for help? etc.)
- Identifying the nature of the obstacle (did they misread the problem? do they understand what is being asked? are they afraid to even start? did they start correctly but got stuck? etc.)
- Sensing what kind of hint is appropriate (pointing silently to an error? suggesting a next step? referencing a similar problem the student did correctly? etc.)
If the students are seated in groups:
- Assessing whether or not to involve another student in the group, or even the whole group in the conversation.
- Choosing a student who would be the best choice as a helper.
- Deciding whether a whole-class conversation is the appropriate next step.
And yes, students are usually part of a class.
- Is the student’s confusion symptomatic of a misconception that is widespread in the class?
- If so, is it due to something that happened in the past few days?
- Or is it related to what students should have learned months ago, or last year?
If students are learning more than procedures to memorize, teachers have to treat them as intelligent human beings, not programmable devices.This involves all of the above moves, and many more. I’m afraid bots are not up to that task.
This is not to say there isn’t a place for technology! Khan Academy and similar sites can help with some of the basic skills; rich environments like Desmos and GeoGebra can offer powerful learning experiences; and critiquing GPT’s correct and incorrect answers to some questions can make for a great lesson. Still, teachers remain essential, and AI is not about to revolutionize our profession.